


Whatever We Want

by Ailelie



Category: Hey Jealousy (Gin Blossoms song)
Genre: Catching Up, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Growing Up, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:25:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailelie/pseuds/Ailelie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Cause all I really want is to be with you</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Feeling like I matter too</i>
  <br/>
  <i>If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago</i>
  <br/>
  <i>I might be here with you</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever We Want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eisoj5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/gifts).



_Seventeen_

 

Ethan pounded up the stairs after Melinda. He found her sitting on the edge of her bed with her comforter scrunched in both fists. Her shoulders shook. He lingered in the doorway, wanting to make everything better, but unsure how he could. Then he noticed a black shirt near the top of the hamper by her door and grabbed it. “Let’s play spies.”

 

Melinda looked up, her nose and eyes red from crying. “Spies?” she asked skeptically.

 

Ethan threw the shirt at her head. “Yeah. We’re sneaking around and--” he trailed off, waiting for Melinda to fill in the gap like she always did, always had done since they were kids.

 

Melinda wavered a smile. “--and the feds are after us. And they’ve got guns, but--”

 

He grinned. “--but we’ve got something better.” He stepped forward, raising his arms like Bruce Lee. “Super ninja powers!”

 

Melinda laughed and the tension that had been winding tighter and tighter in his chest since he'd watched from across the room as Melinda shrank under the verbal barrage of her aunt eased. “So we’re ninja spies now?”

 

Ethan lowered his arms, feeling silly. “I figure we can be whatever we want.”

 

Melinda smoothed the black shirt over her lap. Her comforter was still gathered in mounds on either side of her where she had been gripping it. Ethan could see the protests forming in the twist of her lips and tucked brow. They were too old. They were at her parents’ Christmas party. They would get caught. But then she bit her lip and nodded. “Okay.” She slipped her hands under the hem of the shirt and pulled it neatly over her careful curls and festive green top. The shirt pulled tight over her breasts and snagged the edge of her green shirt, revealing a narrow stripe of her stomach. Ethan swallowed. Melinda didn’t look much like a spy, with her skirt and shiny black heels, but that didn’t matter.

 

Ethan crossed his lips with a finger and exaggerated a tip-toe around the door frame. He flattened himself against the wall and waited for Melinda. She joined him, hitting his shoulder lightly. He relaxed. “What are we really doing?” she asked hushed.

 

“I thought we could slip some pickle juice into your aunt’s wine. Maybe steal some for ourselves.”

 

Melinda’s smile flickered. “She’s right, you know. I probably won’t make it. You have to have real talent and I, I dabble.”

 

Ethan reached down and squeezed Melinda’s wrist. “I love your paintings.”

 

Melinda twisted her hand free and bumped his shoulder. “You don’t count.” It stung more than he’d expected.

 

“Do you still want to slip pickle juice into your aunt’s wine?”

 

Melinda gave a breathy laugh. “Yeah. Let’s.”

 

The mission was a success. The twisted, cock-eyed face Melinda’s aunt made was burned in his memory--not only because it was hilarious, but because it was the last time he and Melinda played together. High school ended. College happened. Life moved on.

 

* * *

 

_Twenty-Seven_

 

“Damn it, Dylan.” Ethan kicked the heavy textbook he’d just jammed his toe against aside. “You left your anatomy book out again.” Dylan didn’t answer; Ethan rolled his eyes. “And you’re in class. Why did I think rooming with a grad student would be a good idea?”

 

He shoved his hands back through his hair and looked around the room until he found his dress shoes by the couch. They were scuffed. He rubbed them over with a throw blanket and slipped them on. If he hurried, he could still manage the bus. He grabbed his shoulder bag and jumped another of Dylan’s massive texts to the front door. When he opened the door, a woman stood there, her hand poised to knock. It took a moment to place her, but the light curls and dark, almost black eyes had not changed.

 

“Melinda?”

 

“Hey, Ethan,” Melinda said with a tired smile. “Long time, no see.”

 

All thoughts of work leaked away. “ _Melinda._ ”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Where have you been?”

 

Melinda glanced over her shoulder. “Mind if I come in?”

 

He stepped back. “Of course.” He was counting the years furiously in his head as she stepped past him and he closed the door. “Eight years. I haven’t seen you for _eight years_.” Melinda said nothing and his shock shifted into anger. “Phones, email, Skype, even a frickin letter with a stamp--you disappeared.” He stopped. Melinda was hugging herself in the middle of his living room, her head bowed and messy curls toppled over her face. The anger slipped out of his grasp. “You disappeared,” he repeated.

 

“Sorry.”

 

Ethan pushed his hair back again and looked around the room, his thoughts racing. “Sit down. I’ll call into work. And we’ll talk.”

 

Melinda stepped around to the couch and sat down. She folded her hands together, her right thumb fidgeting against the back of her left hand. Ethan pulled out his phone and called in sick.

 

“Thought I was okay and then bleurgh, 'hello, breakfast,' you know?”

 

“Sure you can’t come in?” his boss asked.

 

Ethan shrugged, not caring his boss couldn’t see him. “Could, I guess, but my stomach’s still feeling funny and it is probably the Chinese I had last night, but if it's the flu--”

 

He could hear his boss roll his eyes; he really knew Ethan too well. “Stay home. Have a good weekend. We’ll see you again on Monday.”

 

When he turned back around, Melinda was looking up, her brow cocked. “You are still the worst at making up excuses.”

 

“With my natural charm, why bother improving my lies?” The boast did exactly as he'd hoped--Melinda chuckled quietly and shook her head. Eight years, he reminded himself. Eight years, because this was feeling far too easy. Ethan dropped his work bag on the ground and walked around the coffee table to sink down on the couch beside her. “Where’ve you been?”

 

“I quit painting,” Melinda said.

 

“I remember you saying so.” It had been the last time they’d talked. He’d caught her hauling old canvases to the trash bins behind her parents’ house. So many details about their past he could remember perfectly; he revisited them when the nostalgia hit him and examined them like you did especially pretty ornaments, the ones too precious to hang out on the branches and were tucked in by the trunk instead. Hidden. That argument, though, was a blur of anger and pain. All he remembered were her canvases and yelling until his voice scratched while she grew ever tighter and quieter. It had been a short spat, efficient really. When you knew someone so well, it did not take long to hit something fatal.

 

“I’ve started again.” She glanced down at her hands and he noticed then the blue stuck beneath one of her nails and the green scraped across one nail bed. “Mind if I stay a night?”

 

“Of course. Do you have a bag or anything? I’ve got a toothbrush you can use.” The words were out before he could think them through. “I’ll have to let my roommate know. He won’t mind though; he owes me.”

 

Melinda leaned back against the couch. “Thanks.”

 

Ethan fidgeted. “But why?”

 

Melinda bit her lip and then looked sidelong at him. “You want to play spies?” she asked.

 

“Spies?” Ethan repeated, thoroughly confused.

 

Melinda smiled. “Yes, spies. We’re sneaking around and--”

 

It would be so easy to continue the story, to build a silly scheme between them until they both felt better. Instead, Ethan laid one hand over Melinda’s and said, “Melinda, what is going on?”

 

“Have you ever looked at your life and realized you needed to change everything?” Ethan said nothing; he’d only ever had one regret: that one idiotic fight. Ethan squeezed her hand. To his surprise, she turned over her hands and squeezed back. “Well, I looked at my life and wanted to change everything.”

 

He had a choice: continue pressing her for answers or--”We have to pass an important letter to each other, but the KGB is trying to stop us.”

 

Melinda’s shoulders shook with a silent laugh. “But what they don’t know is, even if they intercept the letter, they’ll never be able to crack our code.”

 

“We’re cryptographers now?”

 

“It’s our game,” Melinda replied, looking up at him with a sly smile. “We can be whatever we want.” She stood and tugged Ethan upward. “Come on. Let’s get coffee. Tell me what’s been going on with you.”

 

He stood, pulling his hands back and slipping them safely into his pockets. “Well, it’s been eight years, you know, and I’ve led a very interesting life. I don’t know if coffee will cover it.”

 

“Condense, Ethan,” she said with the same fond smile he had sketched out so sharply in his dreams. “Summarize. I have faith in you.”

 

“Well then. I will strive to exceed your expectations.” He bowed with one arm outstretched toward the door and rolled his wrist. “This way, milady.”

 

Melinda flicked him on the forehead as she walked past him to the door. Ethan straightened, rubbed his brow, and took a deep breath before following Melinda out.

 

Bright puddles filled with fallen leaves dotted the sidewalk. Ethan turned right, away from the busier road and the close-by Starbucks. Among the tangle of quieter streets was an independent coffee shop he’d found during his first week in the city. Their home-roasted coffee had soothed his frustrations and worries more than once.

 

The rich scent of buttery bread and burned caramel overtook the street once they turned a corner. A red ornamental Chinese Maple marked the doorway of the shop. “The Dormouse?” Melinda asked, speaking for the first time since leaving his apartment.

 

“The best,” Ethan affirmed. “Come on, if we’re lucky they’ll still have some fresh scones.”

 

Melinda followed him into the shop, breathing in sharply when she saw the interior. With oddly framed mirrors distributing light and a large variety of hats from the comically small to the vastly oversized, the coffee shop looked like something from the Mad Hatter’s tea party. They ordered their coffees, bought the last of the scones, and took a table by the front window.

 

“So,” Ethan began.

 

“Do you still act?” Melinda interrupted.

 

Ethan shook his head. “I direct though. My company does work with a youth home. For the past two years we’ve done a summer musical. Fulfills the company’s volunteering requirement and I get to direct. What about you? What got you back into painting?”

 

Melinda bent over the table and nodded her head back toward a young woman typing on her computer two tables over. “Maybe she followed us and is eavesdropping to try and crack our code.”

 

Ethan sipped his coffee. “Not like it’s a very good code, to be honest. Painfully easy to crack, really.”

 

Melinda sighed and pulled back. “Can we just, I don’t know, be _us_ for the day? Talk, play silly games, pretend we’re spies and are being chased. Just--”

 

“Eight years,” Ethan interrupted gently. “We’ve not been an ‘us’ for a while.”

 

Melinda shifted her mug between her hands and worried at her lip. “I know. Can we pretend? We never had that fight and--”

 

“You’ll tell me tomorrow?”

 

Melinda met his gaze. “Tomorrow.”

 

He nodded and, knowing it was a mistake, said, “And we’ve been friends this whole time, but--”

 

Melinda smiled and it was as wonderful and terrible as he’d feared. “--but I’ve been away on secret business this past couple of years, so--”

 

“--so I’m catching you up on everything you missed.” He took a bite of his scone and chewed slowly. “This year we did _Return to the Forbidden Planet_ ,” he said once he’d swallowed. “That proved to be a terrible decision.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Well, the troubles all began with the kids wanting to update the music. Apparently ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ simply isn’t cool anymore.”

 

“Kids these days.”

 

Ethan smiled crookedly and dove into the full and terrible story of the worst musical production ever. Melinda laughed at all the right points and asked all the right questions. Lunchtime came and they ordered sandwiches and fresh mugs of coffee. The gulf of eight years shrunk until it felt less like a canyon and more like a puddle shimmering on the sidewalk, easy to step over and ignore.

 

Melinda wasn’t a complete cipher. She shared stories about some of her friends and a horror stories from when she’d worked at a call center in college. All the important details--how she had found his address, why she had come, what about her life was so in need of change--remained secret, however.

 

The afternoon slanted long shadows over their table. “Want to go back to mine and watch a movie? We’ve got a ton of DVDs.”

 

“Sure.”

 

On the way back to his apartment they argued about which movie to watch. The back of Melinda’s hand brushed his. He caught her fingers and tightened his hold. Their hands dangled between them for one step, two, but then he loosened his grip. Ethan slipped his hands back into his pockets. Back at the apartment, Ethan let Melinda set up the movie while he explained to Dylan that he was taking the living room for the night.

 

They ended up watching two movies they’d seen together as kids and quoted lines back and forth. She teased him about his crush on Princess Buttercup and he returned fire with the nightmares she used to have about Jareth. When Labyrinth ended, he slipped in one of his Monty Python dvds. Melinda fell asleep halfway through, slumping on his shoulder. Her curls tickled his cheek. He turned off the video and lowered her head to the couch. Ethan tucked her in with the throw blanket and another from his bed.

 

He could not believe she was there, under his blankets, her face soft and curls wild. He brushed the curls back; and then, hesitating, he knelt down and pressed a kiss above her brow. He rubbed his thumb over her skin where he’d kissed her and stood. He needed sleep.

 

Ethan awoke the next morning to the sound of the blender and Dylan’s study mix blaring. _~And you know it might not be that bad / You were the best I'd ever had~_ He threw on a shirt and sweat pants on his way out of the room. Dylan stood over a textbook at the counter in a pair of ratty boxers. He was attempting to blindly pour his smoothie into a glass while reading and tapping one foot with the beat.

 

On the couch, the throw and blanket were folded neatly and stacked together. “Where’s Melinda?”

 

“The blonde who was here?” Dylan asked without looking up from his book. “She was out the door when I woke up. Said she left something for you though.” _~The past is gone but something might be found / To take its place...hey jealousy~_

 

Ethan turned, looking around the room. “Where?”

 

“Coffee table. She found my old sketch pad from my anatomy class. _If you don't expect too much from me / You might not be let down…_ ”

 

“Please don’t sing.” Ethan picked up the notebook and opened it to the last used page. She must have awakened in the middle of the night; he hadn’t known she still struggled with insomnia.

 

The sketch was of them at the Dormouse. He was gesturing broadly. She was hiding a smile with her coffee cup. At the tables around them were other versions of themselves--as kids hiding under a table, as teenagers dressed all in black with a pickle jar between them, as adults sitting alone at opposite ends of the drawing. In the mirrors were basically stick figures--he made out a graduation cap in one and someone kneeling in another. He wasn’t sure if they were reflections of her life or of a life they’d never led.

 

“So who was she anyway?” Dylan asked, actually looking up from his text. Green smoothie clung to his upper lip. “Not a hook-up.”

 

“No,” Ethan agreed, carefully detaching the sketch. “She’s an old friend. A spy actually. All very hush-hush, you understand, right?”

 

Dylan rolled his eyes and returned to his reading. “Whatever you say.”

 

Ethan sighed. “Yeah. Exactly.” He kicked Dylan’s anatomy book aside again on the way back to his room. “Pick up your books, why don’t you? I know you’re eager to practice, but injuring half your rent check really isn’t the best way.”

 

Dylan flicked him off over his shoulder and Ethan laughed. He placed the drawing his desk carefully and then grabbed his phone to look up a place that did framing. Dylan’s music pulsed through his closed door. _~You were the best I'd ever had / If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago / I might not be alone~_

 

* * *

 

 

_Seven_

 

“Who are you?” A girl with curly pigtails leaned under the edge of the table. Her hair bounced against the floor.

 

“Shh!” Ethan warned her. “Can anybody see you?”

 

Her eyes widened and she looked up. “No,” she whispered.

 

“Get down here.” The girl scrambled down from the chair and under the table cloth. She sat next to Ethan with her knees pulled up to her chest. “I’m Ethan,” he said.

 

“I’m Melinda. What are we doing?”

 

Ethan squinted at Melinda and tried to decide if she was trustworthy. His dad always said you had to give people a good look before telling them anything. He leaned over. “I’m-- _we’re_ spies. We’re being sneaky and we have to--” he stopped. He hadn’t planned that far yet.

 

“We have to get the treasure!” Melinda said. “My mom has pie in the kitchen.”

 

“Right. But we can’t get caught. We’ll get throwed in jail, because--”

 

“All the grown-ups are policemen,” Melinda whispered excitedly, then paused and scrunched up her face. “So we’re thief spies?”

 

Ethan grinned; thief spies sounded a lot more fun than just plain spies. “Our game. Our rules. We can be whatever we want.” He glanced out through the chair rungs. “I think the coast is clear. Ready?”

 

Melinda squeezed his ankle. “Ready. Let’s go.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to D.Y. for talking the idea through with me and correcting the final draft, my roommate for reading the first half and assuring me it didn't suck, Cinaed for listening me to explain the new concept and reading through to check that the story fit the idea, and, finally, great thanks to Luna who answered the hippo's call and beta'd for me. Thank you, all!!


End file.
